Be Alive, Mello
by Dlvvanzor
Summary: Matt remembers the day he found Mello in the burning remains of the building he blew up. Matt POV Oneshot MxM sweetness


Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, nor do I own anything else in this fic that I don't own. Yep. ^-^

**A/N: Slightly AU I guess because they're not dead when they're supposed to be.**

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Fire is hot.

This is something Mello knows very well.

It's something _I_ know very well, too. Because I still remember the day as clearly as anyone can remember their worst nightmare springing into life and full color. Which is clearly. Every single detail: every moment, every sound either of us made, every word either of us said, every tear that slid down my face as I hefted him up and ran hard to get him away from the fire. Every moment of it.

I even remember the last thing he said before he hit the detonator. He thought they were going to be his last words. "I'm sorry, Matt," he whispered into the bug I had on him.

All at once I knew what he was going to do. The stupid idiot, I know him too well. I didn't even bother trying to tell him to stop: the second I heard those words, I dropped everything and got into my car, breaking every single speed limit and narrowly avoiding a kid playing in the street for reasons passing understanding. I was there in record time, I even beat the Fire Department, but it wasn't enough. The building was already shattered, and burning, and I knew, I _knew_, that somewhere in there was Mello. _My_ Mello was somewhere in there, and if he wasn't already dead- which seemed unlikely- he would be dead in moments.

The sky was so dark that night, starless. It was impossible to see through the still burning remains of the building. The smoke was black and thick, instant asphyxiation if that's even possible. It's what it felt like. I didn't, _couldn't_ think before I did it: I just ran in, goggles coming in handy with all the smoke.

A wall of heat assaulted me as I got closer to the building, but I ignored it. My body and instincts were screaming at me to _not_ ignore the old lesson we're all taught as children. Fire burns us, Matty. Don't touch the stove, Matty, don't go near anything hot. Don't go running into a burning building on the off-chance that you might find your best friend, Matty.

My mother never taught me that, anyway.

Stalagmite remainders of the building stood around me as I desperately tried to remember what part of the building he had been in. My foot hit a body and my heart double timed, which, let me tell you, is saying something, because it was already going a million miles an hour. I dropped to my knees and landed on something sharp. I remember cursing under my breath and tearing out the piece of debris and the word 'tetanus' flashing through my mind as I rolled the body over. No, not Mello.

He was still alive, and he blinked at me once, but I dropped him. This guy hadn't been in the room Mello had been in. He had been in the next room over. So that's where Mello was.

The man croaked out something as I left him in a full sprint, moving as quickly as I could to the room where Mello had to be. Had to be. I ignored the guy. If Mello was dead, I'd consider coming back for him.

But Mello wasn't going to be dead. I would not allow that.

I leapt over bits of ceiling and landed hard on shoes that I was now aware were melting. I almost tripped on a hand that I recognized immediately as not belonging to Mello. I couldn't breathe. I could barely even _see_. Lack of oxygen was making it difficult to move; at this point it was only willpower that made it happen. I was almost there. He _had_ to be where I thought he was.

I found him, finally, finally, under a beam. Typical. Of course he would be under a beam. Because, you know, gamers are renowned for their _supple_ upper body strength, and I was _totally_ going to be able to get that off of him.

I dropped to my knees, wincing at the lightly bleeding puncture wound I had received earlier, and ripped my right glove off with my teeth. I put two fingers on his neck. Somehow, somehow, he was alive. He had a pulse. It wasn't a _fantastic_ pulse, but it was a pulse. Thinking ahead, I used my legs to push the beam off of him instead of my hands. Legs are stronger, and burning your hands trying to touch metal in a fire isn't a good plan. When it rolled off him, he moaned a little.

Alive. Alive.

And on fire!

A whole side of his body was in flames. I shouted- coughed, wow, that was stupid- and ripped off my shirt. I beat at the fire until it was gone. Damage had been done, though. That wasn't going to heal pretty. Assuming he lived- which he would- he wasn't going to be happy about it.

I called his name, his real name, but he didn't respond. I was fading fast. I knew it. I had maybe five more minutes worth of adrenalin before my body would shut down on me. I had five minutes to get Mello out of this place.

And I was going to have to carry him.

With a Herculean exertion I had never experienced before and will never be able to recreate, I managed to lift him- dead weight- onto me and over my shoulder. And I ran. I ran hard, around debris and through fires when I couldn't find a path around them. I felt myself dying, my body slowing down, my mind giving up on rational thought, one single idea remaining in my brain, repeating over and over: _'Get him out.'_

I didn't stop running until someone stopped me. A firefighter grabbed me by the shoulders. "Kid! You're far enough away! Are you okay? Who's that? What's-"

He started to take Mello away from me and I let him. I would be of no medical use. The closest thing I had to training was a completed file on Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Which is a good game, but it's hardly firefighter training or a medical degree. As soon as I was sure the much larger man had a good grip on Mello's limp body, I collapsed, and my world went black.

I woke up two days later in the hospital. I shot straight up and looked around.

"Mello?"

A passing nurse paused and stuck her head in. "Hello to you too. Welcome back." She came all the way into the room and smiled kindly at me.

"No... I said... I said 'Mello.' Is he okay?"

She stared at me blankly for a moment. I was sure, then, that he was dead. She had never heard of him because he was dead and had never even made it to the hospital where she would have seen him.

"Mello. He was in the fire. I went in after him. My friend, Mello." I could tell I was about to cry. "Please tell me he's alive." Then I _was_ crying.

"Oh!" Her face lit up. "We didn't have a name on him, but do you mean the boy with the burns who came in recently? Yes, he's alive. He's in the next room over. If you're friends, we can arrange to have you share a room."

I nodded and my throat clogged with emotion. Not dead. I wasn't known for being religious, but I actually thanked God in that moment. Not dead.

Eventually she did wheel me in there. He was asleep, wrapped up like a mummy, but it was him. I don't exactly know how I could tell when I couldn't see any part of him very well, but I knew.

Knew because my heart sped up.

Which, at the time, I considered odd.

He spent three more days unconscious. They told me he would be okay, but I passed most of that time just watching him and being worried and occasionally playing a video game the nurse had relocated from the kid's room to my room. It was a really nice thing to do, but I imagine it was mostly because she was weirded out by me staring at him all the time and constantly asking her to tell me again that he was going to be okay.

Oh, and I had a few third degree burns, too. But they were mostly on the top of my shoulder where I had carried him. And I had some minor burns on my legs.

I managed to distract myself a little bit during the day so that I wasn't always watching him like some stalker, but at night, I couldn't help myself. They had removed his bandages, so I could see his face for the first time.

Swollen, pink, black, purple, and puffy, he was _still_ beautiful.

I was amazed that it had taken me that long to realize that I loved him.

I spent those three nights watching him breathe, watching him shift every now and then, and wrestling with the idea that I knew now was a fact- that I really did love him. Debating how to tell him, _if_ I should tell him. What he would do if I _did_ tell him. I could never predict him.

He woke up on that third night, as I was watching him like I always did. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at his surroundings, and I watched as his incredibly intelligent mind immediately processed where he was, accepted it, and moved on to make further observations.

Which he did. The next thing he noticed was me, on my unburned side in my bed, grinning at him with, I'm sure, tears in my eyes.

He smiled. "I'm alive," he pointed out. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. His voice was like gravel from the smoke damage.

"Yeah."

"And you're in the hospital, too."

"Mmhm."

"Which means that you saved me."

"Kind of."

"Thank you."

"You're more than welcome."

We were silent for a while, just looking at each other. I could tell he was completely exhausted. My heart was brimming with love, almost to the point that I couldn't speak. If I hadn't been sure about it before, I was sure about it then. It certainly would explain why I had never loved anyone before. Because I had always loved _him_, and he'd always been somewhere near me.

"Matt?" he said quietly after a few minutes had passed.

"Mels."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Anything."

He laughed abruptly, but stopped immediately when it hurt. "Ow," he complained.

"Yep."

"Can I still tell you though?" he asked hopefully. He was using his little kid voice. It didn't happen a lot, but it did happen. And he usually only used it when he was most serious.

"Yes."

"I love you."

So I hadn't seen that coming. I was shocked into silence for a moment. But that was Mello: he would just announce something like that. He watched me carefully, gauging my reaction. Apparently what he saw made him feel like it was safe to continue.

"After I blew the place up, something fell on me. And I couldn't move, but I was thinking. All I could think was, 'I hope Matt doesn't try to save me and get killed.' And I realized that if I was actually thinking about something other than beating Near as my last thoughts, I must really care about that thing. And I wasn't thinking about Near, I was thinking about you. And then I realized that I love you."

I was glad it was dark so it didn't matter if I blushed. "Weird. Because I realized a couple of days ago that I love you, too. And I think... possibly... that I always have. Maybe. I mean, don't take that the wrong way or anything."

But he was smiling at me, and I knew it was okay. And that it always _would_ be.

And now here we are.

What feels like so, so long later, we're sitting in front of a campfire. I'm not big on the outdoors- there's nowhere to plug stuff in- but Mello insisted that we _needed_ to go camping, and since I always do what Mello wants, I'm now sitting right next to him on a log. We're both staring at the little crackling fire, and I know exactly what he's thinking. He's reliving every second of it. I am, too. By all means, I'd be perfectly happy to put the fire out with my own body. But I know that he's doing it on purpose.

A log fell and Mello jumped, and his eyes never left the flame, and I was amazed yet again by him. Less than a year after being burned horribly, spending so, so long in a hospital (only because I begged him not to leave before he was discharged) he's _making_ himself sit calmly in front of one now. What appears as an intense, brooding gaze to everyone else _I_ can tell is actually fear. He's scared out of his mind. This is as close to fire as he's been since it happened. But he's determined, and he's mad at that fear, and so I know that we won't be leaving anytime soon. Nature sucks.

I slip my fingers into his and intertwine them on the log. Which has an ant on it. I squish the ant with my palm and then our fingers come together again. He doesn't look up, but I feel him lean a little more into me, and I put my head on his shoulder. He rests his head on mine, squeezing for a moment in some kind of odd but tender head-hug thing.

Neither of us says a word. We both stare at the fire, the thing that we're now both most afraid of. Him because it nearly killed him, me_ also_ because it nearly killed him.

I'm sure we would have realized it eventually. If it hadn't been a near-death experience, it would have been an awkward moment or a Freudian slip. I probably would have talked in my sleep or something. He probably would have been yelling about it and I would have overheard. Maybe we would have tripped on something and landed on top of each other. Whatever.

But I know it would have happened, because nothing can keep apart two people who are meant to love each other. He thinks the same thing. And I know that in whatever situation we die, we'll die on the same day, probably around the same time. I know. Because I'd only go rushing into a fire to save someone like Mello. And there's no one else in this world like him.


End file.
